


Who Can Wonder

by Liu



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Eventual Happy Ending, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Romance, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 09:16:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13291761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liu/pseuds/Liu
Summary: Viktor always knew that his love would be a difficult one.





	Who Can Wonder

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt over on tumblr: what if Viktor had a secret relationship with Karkaroff's aide?  
> For obvious reasons, I've named this boy, but I'm not tagging this as 'OC' because the character does exist in movie canon... even if I'm fabricating his personality and past :D  
> All comments and ideas are very welcome!  
> The title comes from a poem by A. E. Housman: 
> 
> He would not stay for me, and who can wonder?  
>  He would not stay for me to stand and gaze.  
> I shook his hand, and tore my heart in sunder,  
>  And went with half my life about my ways.

It starts with a symbol, haphazardly drawn onto a notebook.

Viktor glimpses it out of the corner of his eye and doesn’t pay it much attention at first. He’s seen it on paper before, in his father’s unsteady hand as the man’s words burned into Viktor’s mind.

_Always remember, Vitya,_ his father said in a drunken slur that night. _I was your age when I saw my father slaughtered like a pig by Grindelwald’s hand. He would have done the same to me, for being my mother’s son, and to you, for being mine. Never forget that, and fear those who would bear this mark with pride._

Viktor has nightmares for days afterwards, images of his own father gazing at him with lifeless eyes, body crumpled on the ground. At Durmstrang, he learns to avoid the sight of that same triangle etched into the blackened stones, in the corridor on the third floor, in the bathrooms on the second. He wonders why no one has scratched it out, erased the marks of the man who murdered so many, but he does not dare ask.

Not until he’s fourteen and the symbol keeps haunting him, always on the edge of his vision, gone before he turns his eyes towards it. He thinks he might be going mad, but does not dare confide in anyone, and during the long northern nights, Viktor turns his thoughts towards missing the sunlight of his homeland, ignoring the nagging feeling of ‘wrong’ that trembles at the periphery of his consciousness.

And then, he sits down for breakfast one morning, and a boy at the next table has Grindelwald’s triangle spelled onto his cloak. Goosebumps break out over Viktor’s skin and his hands turn clammy, but he ducks his head and scowls into his tea and does not say anything. Surely it’s just one person being an idiot – the symbol will disappear soon, because how could anyone wear something so vile without his consciousness clamoring to remove it?

But it happens again after the summer vacation, and there are more. The symbol no longer hides from Viktor’s sight – it is out there for everyone to see, on cloaks and scarves and hats, on notebooks and bags, often enough that it feels like the walls are closing in on him. Viktor tries staring at the ground to avoid it and wishes that someone, _anyone_ would say something, but it feels like no one else even notices. Nobody’s talking about it, for sure, and Viktor has never felt more profoundly alone, even though he’s sure he’s not the only one whose family has been murdered by the wizard whose mark these people are wearing.

He comes to Karkaroff, in the end, because the Grand Master should be the one to address the issue, but he’s laughed out of the man’s office.

“It’s just history, my boy,” Karkaroff says, like history is a thing floating in empty space, like the past does not have the power to hurt or even kill. Like it could not be revived if enough people turn a blind eye; that thought, together with a sense of injustice and loneliness, pushes Viktor out of his seat in the end when he overhears some students discussing Grindelwald.

“I say, he had some good ideas,” one of them shrugs, a tall seventh-year Viktor’s seen at Quidditch tryouts once. “Sure he took things to the extreme, a bit, but we could use someone with a great mind like that in the Assembly.”

Viktor’s stomach churns as they all nod, murmuring about Muggleborns not being the same, about values and cultures and who has been born to hold power in their world. He’s pushing his chair back before he can stop himself, blood pounding in his ears and his hands clenched into fists at his sides, apprehension replaced by angry, blind courage.

“Shut up,” he says, and it comes out as barely a breath, so he swallows and tries again, this time with too much force. “Shut up!”

The hall goes quiet around him, and the people wearing the symbol turn their heads, scorn clear in their eyes.

“Oh, you think you know better, huh?” one sneers, and another joins, and another, and another.

“Think you’re so smart, _boy_?”

“Yeah, I bet you’d just love to hand everything to _them_ , right? Have Mudbloods rule us? Forget all that made us great?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be here then, why don’t you ask your mommy to sign you up for a Muggle school?”

“Yeah. Learn all about how to be a good little Muggle dog, forget the magic in your blood since you don’t seem to appreciate it?”

“Enough.”

Viktor, cheeks flaming and hands shaking with badly suppressed rage, turns at the sound of that quiet, commanding voice. A boy is standing up too, taller and maybe a little older, and the look in his eyes could summon a storm. Viktor knows him only as the hall monitor, the one who won’t turn a blind eye on fighting or stealing for a chocolate frog.

The others snort and mumble among themselves, but none of them dare openly challenge someone who has the power to write them up for stirring up trouble.

“Ah, Vanya, don’t be such a stick in the mud,” someone groans, but the boy’s icy gaze never wavers.

“Then don’t be a bully,” he shoots back and sits down. Viktor is tugged back into his chair by a classmate; he does not have friends, not real ones, but those he speaks to on a regular basis are staring at him a little bit awed, a little bit horrified. There might even be a hint of disapproval in some of their faces, but Viktor doesn’t stop to look too closely.

He’s walking out of the dining hall when someone falls into step by his side – when he turns to look, he’s surprised to find the hall monitor who stood up for him earlier smiling at him like Viktor hasn’t just humiliated himself in front of everybody.

“That’s a brave thing you did in there,” the other boy says, and extends his hand. Viktor almost flinches back before he realizes he’s offering a handshake. “I’m Ivan. Bogdanov. You’re Krum, right?”

Surprised, Viktor blinks – he doesn’t think that anyone knows his name, certainly not anyone outside his class. Bogdanov laughs at his expression.

“Yeah, I saw you flying, at tryouts. You’re pretty decent… Agnes should’ve picked you over Mihail.”

“I’m still the reserve,” Viktor says, a bit defensively. He has worked hard to be on that team, and even a slight chance to play is better than none.

Bogdanov laughs again and slaps his back; warmth spreads through Viktor’s veins and pools in his belly, and he doesn’t really know what to do with that.

“You should’ve been first line. But Agnes is hoping Mihail will ask her out,” the other boy smirks. “You’ll definitely make the team for real next year.”

Viktor can’t think of anything to say to that – he’s never been that great with empty niceties, and even if he wants to thank Bogdanov for saying something in the dining hall, he can’t find the right words.

They walk in silence for a while, back towards the dormitories through the narrow, chilly corridors. It is not until they have to part ways that Bogdanov speaks again.

“For me, it was my grandmother, and my aunt,” he almost whispers; Viktor has to strain his ears to make out the words that send a chill down his spine.

“My grandfather,” he says in turn, and their eyes meet over the sad memories that are not even their own, heritage from parents who have lived the horrors.

“I’ll try talking to Professor Järvinen,” the older boy offers, “I think she lost someone in the war too. Maybe she’ll tell them to stop – and if not, we’ll _make_ them stop.”

He says it like he’s convinced they can, just the two of them, and that determination makes Viktor want to try.

“Alright,” he rasps, feeling like he’s making a vow, but Bogdanov smiles at him like he doesn’t feel the weight of the moment:

“Keep an eye out, will you? Good night, Viktor.”

There’s something about the way his name sounds falling from the older boy’s lips, something intangible and delicate that makes it hard for Viktor to fall asleep that night.

Eventually, they earn a month of detention for starting a fight that turns into a brawl among some thirty students, fists and hexes flying in equal measure. Only a select few are punished, and Viktor grumbles about the unfairness of it all with the best of them, but the thing is… the thing is, there are no triangles with circles on anyone’s cloak afterwards, and Viktor finds that he doesn’t really mind scrubbing gunk out of cauldrons if Bogdanov is there.

He becomes ‘Ivan’ somewhere in the course of that month, and Viktor discovers his wicked, dark sense of humor when it startles a laugh out of him more than once. Ivan always smiles then, smiles and watches like a content cat stretching out in the sun, and something about that feeling lingers in Viktor’s mind even when they’re not together – which is less and less often as time passes.

That closeness becomes indispensable for Viktor; he seeks Ivan out like a magical beacon, and sometimes, it feels like Ivan seeks him out in equal measure. They talk, about Quidditch, about family and obligation, about the past and the future, and sometimes – Viktor may like those moments the best – they sit quietly, doing homework or reading or watching heavy clouds fill the sky, and Viktor doesn’t remember ever being this comfortable around another person. It’s easy, and it’s good, and of course it does not last.

Viktor doesn’t know when exactly his tongue starts to tangle whenever Ivan is near. He couldn’t pinpoint the origin of that ugly, dark, sharp thing in his chest that rears its head whenever a girl leans too close to Vanya, and it’s perhaps a testament to Viktor’s upbringing that it takes him almost a year to figure out what it all means, the half-choked words, the sweaty palms, the way he spends an extra minute making sure he’s presentable even when they’re just meeting up in the library to finish their assignments.

It doesn’t strike as lightning would, that lingering, obtrusive thought. It worries at the edges of Viktor’s consciousness, and he valiantly tries to ignore it at first, because surely, he can’t be like that, can he? Surely he’s not one of _those_ wizards, the kind people whisper about behind their backs, point fingers with cruel sneers and biting words. No, it must be that he’s become too fixated on his friendship with Vanya, always a loner until someone showed him what kindness could look like.

And so Viktor throws himself into his studies and into his training, attempts breakneck maneuvers that leave him gulping Skele-Gro in the infirmary from time to time, and tries not to think too much about Vanya’s worried eyes as the older boy brings sweets and hushed reprimands to Viktor’s bedside. But the ghost of that fluttery, warm feeling is always right there in his chest, and no matter how many bones he breaks as he hits the ground hard, his last thought before losing consciousness is always Ivan’s laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr](https://viktorkrumslash.tumblr.com/).


End file.
